Buck Hardcastle
Bio
Viscount of Hyrkania and private cartographer to the house of Beifong.
Stories (110)
Filter by community
The violent creator of VHS dating.
Jeffrey Ullman was frustrated. He knew videotape was the future, but he couldn’t seem to figure out how to make his mark. He was filming golfers and tennis players and then letting them analyze their swings on instant replay for $25 an hour. However, this was not profitable. He was having to work as a traveling teflon salesman to make ends meet. Then at a dinner party in 1975 a friend complained to him about meeting men. Blind dates were awkward. Chance encounters were too risky. Ullman was instantly inspired. “Advertise” he told her.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Humans
Claims of animal longevity are ridiculous.
We want stories about animals with a lifespan that’s way longer than humans or possibly even immortal. That’s exciting, almost magical. Of course you don’t have time to actually track an animal that long, so you’ll need to come up with some rationale for your declarations. Even if they don’t make sense.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in FYI
6 Considerations in the lost art of curating a DVD collection.
DVDs are of course still around, you can easily find them at big box stores or online. They don’t have the same cultural cache they once did though. I still occasionally pick up a DVD, but there’s a good chance it’ll just sit in my TV cabinet, unopened. That’s how convenient streaming services have become--I can’t be bothered to watch a DVD I bought. On the off chance the internet is destroyed by mischievous raccoons or buying physical copies of movies comes back into style à la vinyl records, here’s a guide to creating a quality DVD collection.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Geeks
When a state hates its residents.
The state government of Missouri is rotten. This isn’t about policies that it has gotten wrong, though there are plenty of those. I’m referring to how the state government of Missouri doesn't just refuse to help its citizens, it actively works to stop assistance provided by the federal government.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in The Swamp
All of Red Sonja's appearances on screen so far.
After more than a decade in development hell it looks like the ball is finally rolling on a Red Sonja film. What if you can't wait though, you want to see Red Sonja in action right now? Well you have some options because she's been on screen before.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Geeks
Snaggletooth is the best cosplayer you haven’t heard of.
One of the more unique cosplay accounts on Instagram you can follow is @snaggletoothu. While other cosplayers are all doing the same trendy character of the moment, Snaggletooth is more likely to be digging up a character from Blade Runner to portray. She can sing, play the guitar and paint. She describes herself as 5"6', 130lbs and mostly muscle. She practices for live action role play battles by going up against guys twice her size and weight. And for some reason she was terrified to talk to me. But hey, bravery isn’t having no fear, it’s being afraid and acting anyway. Conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Geeks
What we know about the Red Sonja movie: Cast, Crew, Locations & Costumes
Hannah John-Kamen has been cast as Red Sonja. Depending on your fandom, you might know her from Game of Thrones, Ant-Man and the Wasp, or Killjoys. She’s also been the lead in the series The Stranger and Brave New World. Reactions have ranged from calling her casting perfect to howls of protests from racist nerds. See, John-Kamen has a black father, and well, how dare she. It’s like there’s a paint swatch of acceptable colors to play characters. She can dye her hair red, relax people. They are missing the far more important question: How tall is she?
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Geeks
What happened to the cryptocurrencies discussed by John Oliver in 2018?
On March 11th 2018, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did an episode about cryptocurrencies. As the episode explains, these are digital, decentralized currencies, open source, not controlled by any business or government. The episode touts the cryptocurrencies decentralized nature & blockchain technology, which was supposed to make them hard to hack, but that’s proven untrue. In 2020 a massive data breach saw the personal information of over 270,000 bitcoin and cryptocurrency users published online. While bitcoin's decentralized nature means there isn't a company or organization that can be targeted directly, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet providers, and other digital platforms will always be bitcoin's greatest weakness. And it’s not just data that’s been stolen-- over $700 million worth of crypto had been pilfered as of 2019.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Trader
5 Pandemic Changes we ought to keep (and 3 that need to end immediately)
COVID-19 is not the only disease out there in the world. Even as vaccines bring the pandemic under control (but it is not over) that doesn’t mean that we should aim to get everything back to the way it was in 2019. Even though this last year has been defined by illness, its been one of health for me. This last year I haven’t had a cold once, I’ve never gone that long without one. That was kind of nice, maybe we shouldn’t give up all of our social distancing measures. Here’s some changes that should stay:
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in The Swamp
Should you talk about how you were canceled?
Lindsay Ellis is a popular YouTuber with a focus on in depth video essays about films. I’ve referenced her work before. She also does featurettes for PBS and wrote a best selling novel, Axiom’s End. On March 26th, she would make a controversial tweet that would lead to her being, in her words canceled.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in Humans
The Henchman’s Award
An invitation to see James O’Keefe receive the Heartland Liberty Prize has been extended to me. Obviously The Heartland Institute doesn’t know who I am (I am a leftist) because there’s no way I’d pay a dime to attend a conservative fundraiser. The bigger question here though is, do they know who James O’Keefe is? Because the man has been repeatedly exposed as a fraud. I’m not going to go into examples of how he’s a fraud because that plays into his game. Mr. O’Keefe makes gotcha videos and he knows that even if the headlines eventually read “Video showing corruption at XYZ was deceptively edited” his intended audience will still vaguely remember “Video showed corruption at XYZ.” I’ll just mention that he has paid $100,000 in a legal settlement and pled guilty in federal court.
By Buck Hardcastle5 years ago in The Swamp
